The Truth Must Be Shown When the Holocaust Is Denied

If someone denies the Holocaust, is it better to ignore the insult or to respond vigorously? Recent events at Saddleback College have shifted the question from the theoretical realm to the practical.

Steven J. Frogue, the embattled trustee of the South Orange County Community College District whom some in the district are seeking to recall, stated recently that “the Holocaust is one of the great human atrocities of all ages.”

Though the statement is welcome, it comes after months of controversy sparked by Frogue’s involvement in the planning of a conference at Saddleback that was to discuss the supposed role of Israel’s secret service, the Mossad, in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and that would have included a speaker who questioned the historical accuracy of the Holocaust. After a spate of protests, the event was scrubbed.

Another indication of Frogue’s involvement with Holocaust denial is sworn affidavits I have seen by eight of his former students at Foothill High School in Santa Ana. They state that in his world cultures class, he either denied the Holocaust (seven of the students) or considered it not worth covering (one student).

In 1995, according to an article in Irvine Valley College’s student paper, the Voice, Frogue publicly questioned a Holocaust course taught there by Richard Prystowsky and stated that he was “distressed” that “Prystowsky is a Holocaust scholar and heavily involved in the Anti-Defamation League of Orange County’s Holocaust Project.”

Prystowsky told me that he was not involved with the ADL’s project but that Frogue’s comments about his course made it “very discouraging to teach this material” and that the controversy had a demoralizing effect on students in the class as well. Prystowsky, who will teach the course for the third time next fall, says there is a great deal of lingering mistrust at the college that he is trying to overcome.

Frogue did not return a telephone call for his response to the controversy.

While Frogue may not deny the Holocaust outright, he appears to have swallowed the revisionist line of the so-called Institute for Historical Review, now based in Newport Beach, which raises questions, for example, about whether Jews were actually gassed at Auschwitz.

The organization’s material can be found on “Greg Raven’s Website for Revisionist Material From the Institute for Historical Review and Elsewhere.” It is full of simplistic and naive evidence. Consider, for example, this gem: “Official German camp regulations make clear that Auschwitz was not an extermination center.” Yes, and the death camps were called “family camps” by Hitler’s henchman.

It is amazing that this pseudo-institute continues to question the gassing of Auschwitz inmates in light of the landmark 1985 case, Mel Mermelstein vs. Institute of Historical Review et al.

Mermelstein, a Huntington Beach businessman and a survivor of Auschwitz, accepted a challenge from the IHR in November 1980 to receive a $50,000 reward if he could prove that Jews were gassed there. Mermelstein sent the IHR a notarized declaration of his experiences in the camp and the names of other eyewitnesses and of scientific experts who could appear before a tribunal the IHR had set up to judge the evidence.

When the IHR did not respond, Mermelstein filed his lawsuit to get the reward. In a pretrial hearing, Presiding Judge Thomas T. Johnson took judicial notice that “Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Poland during the summer of 1944, and it just simply is a fact that falls within the definition of Evidence Code 452(h).”

The case was finally decided in July 1985. Mermelstein was awarded the $50,000 plus an additional $40,000 for pain and suffering, and the defendants agreed to sign a letter of apology to him and other Auschwitz survivors for emotional distress caused them.

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Holocaust denial/revisionism is a sickness, a form of anti-Semitic hatred of the most vile type. It is a suppression of the truth of one of the most exhaustively documented events in history. One need only visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles or even Mermelstein’s small museum at the Auschwitz Study Foundation in Huntington Beach to begin to appreciate the enormity and horror. Or speak to survivors, as I did last Sunday at the Whittier Law School symposium on “Nazi Gold,” and hear the depth of their pain as they recall the nightmare more than half a century later.

Frogue and some of the bigots who spoke on his behalf at the Jan. 20 public meeting of the college district would do well to talk to survivors or visit one of the museums. Or they might consider taking one of the fine courses on the Holocaust offered at UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton or Chapman University, or Prystowsky’s at Irvine Valley College.

If the truth of the Holocaust is denied or minimized, then other unpleasant truths--about slavery, the treatment of Native Americans or the genocide of Bosnian Muslims, for example--might be next.

Benjamin J. Hubbard is a professor and chairman of the Department of Comparative Religion at Cal State Fullerton. He recently co-wrote “America’s Religions: An Educator’s Guide to Beliefs and Practices.” He can be reached by e-mail at bhubbard@fullerton.edu. Call to Renewal can be reached at call to renewal@convene.com and the Common Ground Network at cgnetwork@sfcg.org.